6.  The applicant was born in 1925 and lives in Chişinău.
7.  In 1941 the Soviet authorities nationalised the house owned by his parents. In the same year his family was deported to Russia and to Uzbekistan.
8.  On 8 December 1992 the Moldovan Parliament enacted Law No. 1225-XII “on the rehabilitation of the victims of the political repression committed by the totalitarian communist occupying regime”. The Law enabled the victims of the Soviet repression to claim restitution of their confiscated or nationalised property.
9.  In 1997 the applicant lodged an action with the Centru District Court (Judecătoria Sectorului Centru) by which he sought the restitution of his parents' house. As the former tenants of the house had purchased it from the State, the applicant sought a judicial ruling declaring the purchase contracts null and void. He also requested the eviction of all the occupants of the house.
10.  On 25 June 1997 the Centru District Court found in favour of the applicant and ordered the restitution of the house. It declared null and void the contracts by which the house had been sold to the tenants. The court further ordered the Municipal Council to evict all the occupants, and indicated that the Municipal Council was to provide them with alternative accommodation.
11.  The Municipal Council, the Ministry of Privatization and the occupants lodged an appeal with the Chişinău Regional Court (Tribunalul Municipiului Chişinău) against the judgment of the Centru District Court. On 5 November 1997 the Chişinău Regional Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the judgment with some textual amendments. Since nobody lodged an appeal in cassation, the judgment of 5 November 1997 became final.
12.  In 1999, 2000 and 2001 the bailiff assigned to the case brought proceedings against the Municipal Council for failure to comply with the judgment of 5 November 1997 along with twenty-six similar judgments.
On 28 December 1999 the Centru District Court issued a decision by which a fine of 18 Moldovan lei (MDL) (the equivalent of EUR 1.53 at the time) was imposed on the Head of the Housing Division of the Municipal Council for failure to comply with the judgments.
On 25 August 2000 the same court issued a decision by which it imposed a fine of MDL 1,800 (the equivalent of EUR 161 at the time) on the Municipal Council. The court found inter alia that the shortage of funds and the lack of available apartments could not be relied upon by the Municipal Council to justify the failure to comply with the above judgments.
The Municipal Council lodged an appeal against that decision and on 24 January 2001 the Chişinău Regional Court quashed it on the ground that the shortage of funds and the lack of available apartments had objectively impeded the Municipal Council from complying with the judgments.
On 23 February 2001 the Centru District Court issued a decision by which it imposed a fine of MDL 1,800 on the Municipal Council.
13.  Between 1997 and 2002 the applicant lodged numerous complaints about the non-enforcement of the judgment of 5 November 1997 with the Municipal Council, Centru District Court and the Ministry of Justice. In their replies, the Municipal Council and the Ministry of Justice informed the applicant that due to the lack of funds for the construction of apartment buildings and due to the lack of available alternative accommodation for the evicted persons, the judgment of 5 November 1997 could not be complied with.
14.  In April 2004 four occupants of the applicant's house lodged with the Chişinău Court of Appeal a request for revision of the judgments of 25 June 1997 and 5 November 1997. Relying on Article 449 of the new Code of Civil Procedure (see paragraph 21 below) they argued in their request that new information have become known to them. They also asked the court to extend the deadline for lodging the request in view of the fact that the new information had been obtained by them from the National Archives in April 2004.
On 26 May 2004 the Court of Appeal found in favour of the occupants, quashed the judgments of 25 June 1997 and 5 November 1997 and ordered the re-opening of the proceedings in the light of the newly discovered facts. The court also decided to extend the time limit for lodging the request.
The new facts relied upon by the Court of Appeal in its judgment were an issue of the Municipal Official Gazette of 1940, and a few certificates from the National Archives and from the Land Register dated April and May 2004. According to these documents, due to a change of numbers of the houses on the street, it was unclear whether the house provided for in the final judgments or another house belonged to the applicant's family. The Court of Appeal did not specify in its judgment whether Article 449 of the new Code of Civil Procedure had a retroactive effect; nor were reasons given for extending the time limit for the lodging of the revision request.